Cognitive Developmental Factors and Rule-violating Behavior: The Role of Personal Attributes, Attitudes, and Peers

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ABSTRACTBecause adolescents are disproportionately prone to engage in rule-violating behavior, controlling such behavior requires a comprehensive understanding of youths social development during adolescence. The present research will help us to understand the relation between social development and rule-violation in three primary ways. First, it will shed light on whether the development of youths ability to reason in more sophisticated and mature ways about morality and law puts them at less risk for rule-violating behavior. Second, it will combine psychological and sociological approaches to shed light on precisely how the development of this ability prevents rule-violating behavior. It might be the case, for example, that the ability to reason in sophisticated ways about moral and legal issues affects youths rule-violating behavior via its influence on their personalities, their choice of peer associates, or via both processes simultaneously. The present research will explore these and other potential means by which the ability to reason in sophisticated ways about moral and legal issues may lower the risk for rule-violating behavior. Finally, the present research will examine each of the above issues separately for middle-school versus high-school students to examine the possibility that different results emerge at different stages of social development. Data will come from student surveys that will be completed during regular school hours at middle-schools and high-schools throughout the state of New Hampshire and will be analyzed with appropriate quantitative statistical methods drawing on the research experience of the principal investigator and two co-principal investigators. Results of the proposed research will be disseminated in a series of peer-reviewed journal articles and its data will be available for analysis by graduate students in the Psychology and Sociology Departments and in the Justice Studies Program. Ultimately, the proposed research will provide a more comprehensive understanding of the manner in which cognitive development influences rule-violating behavior and, therefore, will provide the basis for the development and assessment of interventions aimed at reducing rule-violating behavior among adolescents.